Rationale:
To learn to read and spell words, children need the alphabetic insight
that letters stand for phonemes and spelling map out the phonemes in spoken
words. Before children can match letters to phonemes, they have to
recognize phonemes. This lesson will help children identify /m/,
the sound made after eating your favorite food, which for me is Mac &
Cheese. The student will learn to recognize /m/ in spoken words by
learning a meaningful representation and a letter symbol, and then practice
finding /m/ words.

Procedures:1. Letters stand for the way our
mouth moves when we say words. Today we are going to work on the
mouth movement /m/.2. Ask student: When you eat your
favorite food, do you ever say, "Mmmm, Mmmm"? That is the mouth movement
we are going to look for in words. When you say /m/, you press your
lips together. I will show you how to spot /m/ in words. I
will stretch out a word, and you tell me if I press my lips together. Mmm-aa-tt.
Correct, the /m/ is at the beginning of the word3. Let's try a tongue twister. "My
mother makes magnificent Mac & Cheese!" Everybody say it together.
Now say it again, and this time, stretch the /m/ at the beginning of he
words. "Mmmy mmmother mmmakes mmmagnificent
Mmmac
& Cheese!" Nice Work.4. [Have students take out primary
paper and pencils.] "We use the letter m to spell /m/. Let's
write it. Start at the fence and go straight down to the sidewalk.
Without lifting your pencil, go back to fence and make one hump, then a
second hump. [Model each instruction given.] You have now completed
drawing the letter m. I want to see everybody's m.
After I put a sticker on it, I want you to make five more just like it.
When you see the letter m all by itself in a word, that's the signal
to say /m/, like in "Mmm Mac & Cheese!"5. I am going to give everyone a
card with m on one side and a ? on the other side.
I am going to say some words. If you hear the /m/ sound hold up the
m. If you don't hear the m sound hold up the ?.
gum or candy? mom or dad? gorilla or monkey?6. Read Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs
and Ham and talk about the story. Read it again, and have students
raise their hands when they hear words with /m/. [Explain to the
students that the /m/ sound might not come at the beginning of the words.]
List their words on the board. Then have students draw pictures of their
favorite foods and write a message about it using invented spelling.7. For assessment, give each student
a picture page. Help students name each picture and then have them
write the letter m with his or her crayon next to the pictures whose
names have /m/ and have the students put an X over the pictures
whose names doesn't have /m/.